Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
“Maybe let’s call it a night,” Miguel whispered, tasting the sweetness of relief on his tongue.
Nero clapped, then grabbed the handle at the thick door of the enclosure, and pushed it back in place. The red light flashing above him dimmed as soon as the massive cage locked.
“I... the park’s open tomorrow... we need to take him out of there,” the kid said, gesturing toward the enclosure where the chimp kept dragging Markos’s remains about, to the enjoyment of his audience.
Oscar snapped out of his stupor and pushed back the long gray hair stuck to his sweaty face. “Then fucking do it!” His wide-eyed gaze pinned Nero in place. “What did you do?”
“I hate animal cruelty,” Nero said, showing no remorse whatsoever.
Miguel wanted to throttle him. “He’s on drugs. Maybe we’ll just come back tomorrow when he’s sober,” he said, never letting go of his gun. He now knew the pickup location, and if the kids were kept here overnight, Miguel had the sliver of a chance to alert the cops anonymously. Whatever Nero had taken, Miguel was glad he hadn’t joined in after all.
Oscar was still panting, and flinched when bones cracked in the chimpanzee enclosure, but Miguel wasn’t interested in the gore of posthumous mutilation and didn’t look over his shoulder.
“Out of the question. Mr. Moreno was insistent they need to be taken tonight,” Oscar mumbled once he composed himself.
Nero sighed and made a wide gesture with both arms. “Fine! Where are they?”
Oscar rubbed his red face and glanced toward the kid, who still watched the cage in terror. “Don’t just stand there. Call the vet. We need tranquilizer. Lots of it.”
“Y-yes,” the boy muttered and ran off while Miguel and Nero followed Oscar, whose steps were visibly less coordinated than before.
“Get a grip,” Miguel growled at Nero behind the trafficker’s back.
“He took on the wrong chimp, okay? I don’t make the rules,” Nero said, as if he hadn’t been the one to let the ape out.
“Just stop doing stupid shit and let me handle the job if you’re too high to think straight. You’ll get us killed.” Miguel shook his head, but stalled when Oscar opened a wooden shed. Inside, a set of concrete stairs led deep underground.
Miguel’s stomach sank, but he’d already made up his mind about this job and there was no point in dwelling on the few fibers of morality he still had in him.
The cellar was utilitarian in nature—a single room with a ceiling so low Miguel had to walk with his head down to avoid getting hurt. There was a safe, and some cupboards with canned food, but the interior was dominated by a cage in the back.
Breathing in air stuffy with the odors of sweat and fear, Miguel swallowed hard as he took in the five figures huddled together on the floor behind bars.
“We had them prepared,” Oscar said, gesturing at the kids, some of whom wouldn’t have been able to stand straight in an enclosure clearly meant for a quadruped the size of a wild cat. All had their hands cuffed, and black bags on their heads, as if they posed serious danger to the adult men handling them. What could they have possibly done? Bitten Oscar’s hand? Or was it that seeing their tearful eyes had been too much even for these goons?
Miguel’s gaze stalled on a pink Minnie Mouse T-shirt worn by one of the girls. He wasn’t good at assessing age, but the thin, awkwardly shaped bodies behind the bars typically belonged to kids at the cusp of adolescence.
“So organized,” Nero said, leaning against the cage, and one of the children flinched like a mouse sensing the presence of a cat.
Miguel wanted to swallow, but the saliva wouldn’t slide down his throat. Nero had once tried to help a girl out of Raul’s clutches, and claimed to dislike this side of the business but maybe he became less sentimental over the three years they’d known each other.
“Is all paid for?” Miguel asked, and when Oscar confirmed, Miguel glanced at Nero, but the guy was busy chasing imaginary butterflies. Of course. The dirty work would be left in Miguel’s hands.
He could only wonder whether those teens had been abducted at random, given up by their families to pay off debts, or taken as punishment for their parents’ actions. The youngest of Miguel’s five sisters had been thirteen, the oldest—twenty. All of them on the cusp of starting their lives, yet taken away from their family, abused, and discarded into a shallow grave as though they were trash because of Raul Moreno’s desire to make an example of their family.
There were five kids in the cage, just like there had been five of Miguel’s sisters before Raul and his buddies had ripped through them. Miguel had already gotten rid of two of the monsters, and he couldn’t let down his mother by showing weakness. Once he spilled the Cannibal’s blood, their revenge would be over.